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Reflections of Life at 43: The Rise of La Madonna Rosa
CW: suicide, sexual assault, awakenings, healing
The best gift, the most uplifting present I could have given myself this year for my birthday is the gift of being authentic and real with myself.
I am no stranger to introspection. I can navel gaze with the best of them. And as exhausted as I’ve been I’ve never truly hidden from the dark stuff in my life, the intense inner work of healing that I’ve needed to do. But like most of us, I was frustrated and tired with all this work, feeling like I was on a never-ending grind that was wearing me thin rather than building me up. I was doing the heavy lifting, I was picking up every stone, examining each brick of my wounded tower of self. What was I missing?
At no time was that frustration more apparent than in 2012 when I truly learned how trauma reverberates reverberations to create an everlasting static that clouds the mind. A constant buzz reminding me that the world was inherently unsafe. An undercurrent that made me question whether I was inherently unsafe for myself or those around me. Doubting every single fraction of my value.
Trauma is a dream killer
My brain became twisted up with these messages of my burdensome distortions. I couldn’t see straight anymore and nor could I see a way through such devastating destruction in my life. It wasn’t just that there was one trauma I had to deal with – I had several that were presenting all at the same time setting off alarm bells all over my psyche. Post-traumatic stress kept me up constantly with nightmares, twitching pain throughout my body, night terrors where I was screaming and crying for hours at a time. I’d wake in the morning with puffy, raw eyes and a wounded spirit. There was no joy to my day because I knew I would only be facing more horrors at night.
I wasn’t well. A sleep study told me I had sleep apnea, which didn’t actually explain why I couldn’t fall asleep in the first place. Why my ears were sensitive to every sound – I swear I could hear my dog fart three rooms away. It didn’t explain why I started having recurring nightmares of being surrounded by white pine trees on fire. It didn’t explain that the night my childhood abuser died was the night those same dreams from childhood started up again for the first time in nearly 30 years.
Nope, that was trauma.
And that trauma was augmented by a childhood prophesy I had held secret from all but the closest of partners: When I was 6, in my nightly prayers, Jesus told me I wouldn’t live past 35, similar to how old he was when he, too, died for humanity. When I received my calling in 1990, I dedicated everything to that one purpose because after all, I knew my time here was limited. I believed in this prophecy so strongly that for the longest time I refused to even consider marriage or having children. I was labeled as having a fear of commitment, but given what I believed, can you blame me?
I took that belief to heart – and when I turned 16 years old, I found my birthday to be the best time for a true examination of conscience. I started to reject presents and attention, shying away from parties or celebrations in my honor. And like most things, I did my birthday the Janet Way – I turned a day of celebration into a solitary, reverent ritual of reconciliation, of journeying into a dark night of the soul to view my failures with brutal honesty and a penitent heart. I mentally flaggellated myself for the imperfections that got in the way of being a perfect example of love for humanity. It didn’t matter that my scope was so limited or that I was human. I was here only for a short time and so I needed to ensure that everything I did adhered to the highest of my ethical guidelines, my calling’s potential.
Since 1993, each year my birthday has been punctuated by a private ritual where I confess my sins to the Divine and accept punishment and penance for my sins. Each and every year, I buried myself in self-absorbed sorrow for my failings, of the ways I had disappointed those around me or the divine with my weakness and cowardice, my avarice and selfishness. The more that people celebrated me the more I punished myself for the weakness of needing that attention, my cowardice at not standing up for myself to push away presents. Eventually I got to the point where each December I would change my birthday on Facebook to a day earlier in the year so that it wouldn’t show up in notifications and I could avoid the unnecessary attention.
But there is something beautiful as well. It became a time for me to look back on the events and actions of the past year and truly empathize with those who I have hurt, especially those who I hurt with my selfishness. There are always many, many hurts for me to delve into. But when it’s over I am cleansed. I am forgiven. I am renewed to my divine purpose once again. A once-a-year reconciliation.
The Dream that Saved My Life
Part of the reason 2012 was so hard was because I had this looming deadline over my head. A prophesy that I wouldn’t make it past that age, that I would be sacrificed to the gods of exhaustion and obscurity. So even if I hadn’t been going through all the trauma, the bar exam, the death of an abuser, the separation of my family, I would have been paranoid about this ticking clock over my head. But the trauma only made that ticking clock yet another thing I couldn’t control.
So around Thanksgiving, after my sons’ birthdays (they’re 6 days shy of 6 years apart), I felt the need to control something – anything – about my experience in life. I couldn’t control what was happening int he rest of my world and certainly not what was happening to even my basic need for sleep, but I could control the outcome of this prophesy. I didn’t fear death, but I didn’t want to die in an accident or of a disease I couldn’t control. And even though my cosmic pledge was “Thy will be done”, I wasn’t going to leave this up to chance. If I was going to be parted from my loved ones and my calling, it was going to be on my terms only and with the knowledge I had a chance to say goodbye.
I started planning my suicide.
By this time in my life I was doing my dark birthday ritual a night or two before the actual day. I had relented that my family could still wish me a happy birthday – so if I did the ritual earlier in the week I wouldn’t be so distraught when someone wished me “Happy Birthday!”. I might despise it, but I wouldn’t outright reject the person saying it. I didn’t want to commit suicide, but it was literally the only way I felt I could reassert myself over the trauma of my own timeline, planning out how my family would move on without me. I planned the ritual for a few nights before and told myself that if I didn’t receive a clear message from the Divine by that date telling me otherwise by then, I would follow through on the plan.
I laid down to sleep on 12/12/12 and woke up the next morning from a dream that was so crystal clear, so somatically significant that it changed my life forever. A dream presenting me with a love so powerful that it filled me with more joy than I had ever felt before in my life. A cosmic reunion of souls, a Druid for the Queen in me, each of us supporting the other’s mission, an oasis of wisdom and sensuality between the storms. I saw a version of myself that I always wanted to be, one that was so deeply resonant that I have used it as blueprint for the life I am creating today: the Queen.
It was only then that I realized I was about to enact a plan based on the interpretations of a six year old me. I knew then that 35 wasn’t going to be the end, 35 would be the beginning.
Here is what I wrote back then:
“In the year 2012, 5 days before what many, including myself, feel is a shift in the consciousness of humanity, I turn 35. Ever since I was 6 years old, I have believed that I would never make it past 35, so this is the one birthday I have honed in on as more life-altering than the rest. I can feel something big about to make its way into my life. A new beginning and everything spiritual tells me it will be a time of great independence and bold action. This dream confirms all of that in a very real way that is hard to deny. I have to move boldly forth with power and confidence into this new year, this new life, this new adventure and trust my heart and my skill to be my guides….as I once did, but in a brand new way.
JKRose, 2012
In all, I have the power to make this happen. Maybe not with the actual man in the dream (although I’ll never turn that down!), but certainly with what he (the Lover) represents. A union. A magnetic attraction. A fulfillment of purpose based on a risk of vulnerability, emotional chemistry, and sensual spirituality. The breaking of the dam that has held me too steady for too long. A loss of control that is mutual, consensual ,and completely magnificent in its beauty. I will have to take the step to make the changes that I see in this dream. I have no doubt about this. But I know it can be done. And I know I’ve found the path to reclaiming my soulful purpose again.”
Embracing the re-birth day
Here I am 8 years later – I made it!
I have arrived at this promised destination. Despite my optimism above, I took the long way to wade through my own trauma, to unravel the knots that have been holding me back. I had to resolve the threads of active retraumatization – the ripples that interrupted the calm I was trying to achieve. I had to resolve the distortions I still saw in the mirror, reflected in my life. I had to finally make the hard choice to choose myself. So when I left my job a year ago, all throughout COVID, I’ve been healing my weary heart, tearing off the layers of heartache that keep me from trusting myself.
I’ve engaged several healers throughout the years to help me with the issues that have been holding me back and making me feel small. But that help is meaningless if I’m not willing to confront all the ways those old beliefs where self-sacrifice is an expected penance for the crimes of who I am and who I’ve disappointed. But it’s only been in the last year, when i rejected the career-climbing hustle, when I removed myself from the practice of law (and its culture of dominance, emotional denial and brutal nitpicking) that I started to see who i was without all of these things. Sure, I haven’t passed a policy agenda or secured as many clients as I want to, but I’m enjoying existence more. I’m enjoying the freedom to determine my own day and to forgive my errors quickly so I can move on. I had to be free of the critics sitting on my shoulder, winding me up with hyperbolic stories of my failures, stirring up old traumas with each triggering hurt.
The work I have done to integrate this hurt, to transform the stories of an old, scared version of me is the leadership I’ve been called to. To be the example. The impossible Rose growing in the cold, dark of winter. To be a symbol of resilience achieved through Love, an avatar of tenacity in the face of overwhelming trauma.
My ritual was quite different this year – cut into two parts.
In the first, I surrendered my woes to Our Lady of Guadalupe on 12/12, keeping a vigil at my altar to her, surrounded by the red, white and pink fire & ice roses that symbolize my new calling. I encountered past lives that needed healing. And for the first time in my life, I was able to heal myself the way I’ve healed others. I cried and purged the memories of the past, rewriting old stories to tell a new truth about my life. I touched the wounds of my ancestors and set them free of the burden of our collective, inherited sexual shame and guilt for our failures throughout these lifetimes. I am the best of what they came here to do and it is my job to release them of the inter-generational trauma I carry, to gently forgive and heal the only way I know how.
That night between rituals, the anniversary of this life-altering dream 8 years ago, I was gifted with a momentary glimpse at what my partners see in me. And I was moved. I saw myself as I did in that dream. I realized in that moment that I had arrived. I would never be able to unsee that image of myself as laughing grace and overwhelming love, the true impossibility of my radiance. Why so many had seen me as their lighthouse, a constancy of light emerging in the darkness, reminding them they’re not alone.
For a moment, I understood what it had all been for. And I was transported to a core of myself I never saw before. I was finally ready to let go of the cords binding my heart. I was finally free.
By time I laid out everything I needed to start my true birthday ritual on Sunday night, I was entirely at peace and even excited for this celebration and, I daresay, coronation.
I celebrated and anointed my rebirth as the Impossible December Rose, taking a new name for my calling: La Madonna Rosa. And just as Juan Diego, or Cuauhtlatoatzin, his birth name, brought roses growing on Tepeyac to prove to the bishop Our Lady’s /Tonantizin’s appearance, I am here to bring people to the truth of miracles available within if they just believe. I am here to show the beauty that is waiting for them, the true miracle of integration and oneness. That night through to the morning of the eclipse, I danced, chanted, meditated and eventually took vows to step into my new role. The role presented in that fated dream, accepting the new responsibilities and directives. But most of all finally accepting myself as the Divine Leader I was meant to become.
Even though I’m still a bit of a control freak (what Queen isn’t?), I found my heart again and it is open and ready to shine forth. Profuse with affection and passion for humanity. Overflowing with gratitude for the generosity of my time here on earth, valuing every moment of every day to live out my purpose, including, and especially caring for myself. I am finally ready to serve humanity exactly as I am, in the only way I know how: as a reflection of the impossible resilience of humanity’s light in all its tender imperfections and blessed depths within us all.
Rise of the Mountain Queen: reclaiming my true self
Looking through old journals tonight, I realized that one year ago today I went on a personal pilgrimage to our mountain cabin in the high country of Colorado. I was actively trying to avoid suicide, too traumatized and exhausted to see straight, too hopeful to completely give in. And what I needed most was a solo journey past the foothills to restore the truth of myself.
I talk often about how I am a Colorado Girl. My dad, who worked his way through college as a fire lookout near Boulder, did his best to try to teach me what he knew about cross-country skiing, building a fire, hiking a 14er (I still haven’t accomplished that – it’s still on the list). And when I had nightmares, which I inevitably did, he would lay on my floor and talk me through visualizing the meadow he and I hiked every year until I fell back asleep.
I spent all of my summers getting dirty in Colorado. I’d spend a week with my grandparents where we’d pick chile peppers from a local farm and I’d spend a week at the cabin exploring old mines and new paths with my parents. These memories are more vivid and memorable than the ones I have of even my friends and teachers, with whom I spent more time. And while I’m not a camper (I have reasons) I could spend all day exploring and soaking in the quiet of my beautiful mountains.
During those summers when I’d have time to wander on my own with my walkman, I’d end up at a specific rock formation on our property that I used to call my Castle. I’d set up my teddy bears, ask them to bring me a pretty stone (rose quartz typically) to show “tribute” and their commitment to being in my kingdom. And yet, I ruled alongside them, taking care of the business that is a human’s prerogative (like travel arrangements) and they took care of their own business (like marriages or bear disputes). My bears and I each ruled our own kingdoms in cooperation and in harmony with one another. And in some ways, that was always the heart of my ideal vision of leadership.
This vision became part of a larger ambition to serve this state, improving the lives of its people. I am so very much in love with this state – the beauty of its diversity, the elegance of its quirks, the passion of its people. I wanted to bring the same harmony that the state provided to me without even trying. I know I can find myself both in my my hometown of Pueblo, which preserves the roots of my public service dreams, and the mountains, which preserves the earthy connection to my freedom-loving soul.
Transformation starts when we decide we are enough
As my life went on, as I went through trials, the idea of the mountains, the appearance of a clear lake against a backdrop of the Rockies, was always a calming force for me. To dip my toes in the cold rush of Boulder Creek, to smell the forest air after a summer monsoon, to be humbled by the vastness of the galaxy laid before you in the purest of night.
A year ago I was on the verge of suicide, a constant battle day after day. The stress, the retraumatization was too much to bear. And while I held a leadership role in our organization, I felt too exhausted, too tapped out to be effective. I stopped taking care of myself, a passive aggressive self-destructive mechanism that added to rather than relieved my misery. Sleep deprivation, one meal a day, and high stakes decisions at work with active, daily reminders of trauma? This dangerous cocktail felt much like the anxious uncertainty, dread, and anger that we see around us today. Where the injustices, the wounds, the betrayals, the disappointments, the dramas became so heavy, so intolerable that I had to burst out of that cage and get above it all.
In a dramatic climax, I left my job, got back into therapy, tuned into an 11:11 spiritual enlightenment call with my friend, Lisa Gunshore, in November and began shedding the perspectives and patterns of the past. And what I noticed more than anything was just how often I was making myself small so that others wouldn’t be hurt by the power of my light.
I was first called to this journey on December 13, 2012. There was a massive shift in my life, an urge, a drive to finally feel worthy of carrying a larger light in the darkness of our world. I was scared, I was small, I was contained. But even then I knew it would be profound.
I am in a period of increased sensitivity to my calling, my purpose but in particular, to the needs of others. My challenge is to become a light, to allow my heart to glow with the gifts I naturally possess. I need to stop shrouding my light, inhibiting my heart. I must trust my own wisdom. And I must trust that my needs are always met.
Janet Rose – Solar Return
And while I’ve been steadily leveling up over the years in response to that call, something was always holding me back. A persistent thread of self-denial, of sacrifice, qualities I thought I needed to be a good leader. And yet, when I chose to prioritize my own life, to leave my job, take control over my health, and allow myself the rest my body and mind so desperately needed, my life changed, started to shift dramatically. The potential of my life started to unfold.
My life since November has been like a big, giant rose opening fully for the first time. Even in my wildest dreams I couldn’t imagine what has taken hold.
Creatively the past 8 months have been the most amazing of my entire life. I’ve painted, I’m about 20% done with my first novel. I’ve given presentations on trauma-informed care and Mother Mary. I am a frequent guest on the Buddhist Biohacker YouTube channel. I’ve launched a business and website, Rose Connections, and am building my own YouTube channel under the same name. I didn’t expect any of this.
This rose is unfolding faster than I can keep up with. And I love it. I have never felt so alive and vibrant in all my life.
Accepting the Rose Quartz Crown
On June 25th I celebrated the 3oth anniversary of my calling. And while a post detailing the origins and insights of that calling is certainly in the works, suffice it to say that after 30 years I needed a huge shift like this to still be able to do the work I was called to do. I was resistant for a number of reasons, but the biggest was that the new archetype I was being asked to embrace was that of the Queen.
The Mountain Queen.
I’ve talked about this shift a lot, particularly on Instagram and Twitter, but even back in 2017, when I was fresh in a new job, I could feel the call of this image, I could feel myself inching closer to accepting the crown. But messages about deservingness, embedded deep in my psyche unraveled the opportunities I could have taken to make that a reality.
The image I have in my mind always moves and humbles me. Crowned with rose quartz, I offer a Temple of Acceptance and Unconditional Love. I offer a structure, training that works with the heart instead of against it. I have a rose in the palm of each hand. A white rose in my right palm, representing the Divine Masculine, active, legalista, wit, and knowledge. A luscious red rose spilling out of my left, representing the Divine Feminine, receptive, intuitive, earthen healer. And from my palms, I create a bright pink, crystalline rose, an integration of Masculine & Feminine, a compassionately powerful union. And in this image that shows up in my meditations, this beautiful, pink crystalline rose atop the temple acting as a lighthouse calling seekers to a new home.
I fought myself over this for a long time, feeling unworthy of the role. Feeling too small, too insignificant, too egotistical, too unprepared, too inelegant. And yet, and yet…the signals never stopped, the imagery only grew stronger, the inspiration to reclaim my deservingness became impossible to ignore. I had to be all in or I would continue feeling out of balance forever.
We are all being called to offer our beautiful and unique talents to creating a better world whether we think we’re worthy or not. We are all being called to accept the divine purpose within, and the responsibility we have to give of our true selves, not the ones others told us who we should be. And the only way we can do that is by stripping away the structures within ourselves that have been holding us back. Stripping these away brick by brick, intentionally and compassionately until the true self shines through.
Last week when I was up at the cabin with Warrior, Husband, and my kid to celebrate the 4th of July in some peace and quiet, I was also there to give thanks to the Mountain for always being there for me. For always providing a safe space for me.
As I sat at my Castle settling in for a mediation, my foot slipped and uncovered a cache of rocks that I had collected as a child. Evidence of the tribute I had asked from my stuffed animals. I suddenly laughed out loud. Because I realized in that moment that all this fretting over my purpose was for nothing. For I had been training for this all along. I had set this path into motion from the very beginning.
All this time I felt I was unworthy of a role like the queen, yet when as a kid, I had already been living the exact thing I’m trying to create. What am I fretting for? I just needed to remember Who I Really Am and I could stop being so afraid. I literally asked for and planned for this as a child and now the grown-up me was trying to stop it from happening? Oh hells no. I ended up creating a circle of those stones, to protect the innocence of that vision, the earnestness of that calling, the purity of my intentions to serve others.
That’s when I decided that there was no turning back. When I chose to truly inhabit that space, to accept the Rose Quartz crown being offered to me, the blessings immediately started to flow. It’s been thrilling and so rewarding. The public ownership of my story. Sharing a declaration to the world about Who I Really Am. This unlocked a future that I’m has exceeded all imagination.
By recovering myself, reclaiming my dreams I have been able to become the person I most needed in the midst of my darkness. In embracing my own authenticity, owning my own power, leading with vulnerability, I am living my life in the way I wished I had seen more of growing up. It was only in surrendering to the call of the universe, reconnecting with my soul that I truly found the me that had been there all along.
I am sharing this to say – Shine on, you crazy diamond. Trust in the truth of your vision, in the authenticity of your voice and the magnificence of your vision. Accept the sparkling crown being offered to you and become the person you most needed in the middle of your darkness.
Bessemer Girl: You have what it takes to survive
“I just want to go home”
The phrase was on constant repeat in my head in moments of desperation and self-defeat. Starting in my teens, I’d have this phrase pulse like a chant in my brain. A motto for when I was ready to give up all hope, all fight, all resolve. Sometimes I wanted to give up on school, Chicago, Denver, parenting, homeownership, polyamory, romance, the stresses of my first job out of law school, the bar exam. It was the easiest thing to cling to in those searing stressful moments – the thought of home. Especially when I was far from Colorado. When times got tough the most comforting thought in the world was to crawl up in my bed on the giant house near the Fountain River and withdraw from the harshness of the world.
[CW: mentions of suicide, PTSD, sexual assault, trauma but also resilience, healing, faith and sex]
The past five years have been professionally prosperous for me. I have gone from owning my own mediation business to providing direct service to people experiencing homelessness, culminating in a senior management position at a major nonprofit organization. I honestly couldn’t be more grateful for all of the opportunities I’ve had. I am so very blessed.
But despite this extraordinary level of success in the past five years I have been increasingly unhappy. The chanting in my head didn’t go away with success, it only got more persistent. The stress breaking me down so it was constant drumming in the back of my mind, the first thing I’d hear in the morning and the last I’d hear at night.
It isn’t easy for me to admit that, especially here. More than anything I want my life to stand for something meaningful, powerful and inspirational – and deep in my heart I really, truly don’t hate my life. But the stresses, the accumulated traumas, the internalized doubt and toxic messaging of my internal world were constantly crashing into each other. I had never been great at prioritizing self-care, so when I was met with crushing amounts of vicarious trauma, fear and insecurity over the past few years, I spiraled even further into self-hatred, infecting my job, my family and my soul with a loathing I didn’t even know was a part of me.
I left my job at the end of October and left the organization last week. And what I’ve learned since then will help me survive the rest of this life.
Impostor Blessings
I’ve been open in the past with the ways I’ve struggled with things like imposter syndrome and people-pleasing. When you’ve had such significant challenges with deservingness, that sort of meteoric rise can produce more anxiety and pressure than it alleviates. Until I found myself deserving of that kind of rise, it was never going to feel right.
I had too much that was working against me. The accumulation of vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue made my soul ache for daily relief that never came. I was new to supervision and my lawyer’s brain was constantly overthinking everything I said and did. I had trouble with processing financial statements quickly enough to give my people answers about expenditures. (Nevermind that I was now using terms like “expenditures” and “write-ups” far more frequently than my little social-justice, romantic heart ever imagined). I wasn’t taking care of myself either – getting an average of 4 hours of sleep a night, working an average of 65 hours a week, eating only one meal by the end of the day. I was dehydrated, chronically cranky and progressively unwell.
And so, over the past five years, instead of my brain chanting “I just want to go home”, it began to shift to “I hate my life”. A phrase that rang relentlessly in my head, even with the smallest of mistakes. When my nerves really were at their breaking point, the chant would spill out of my mouth bursting unwelcome into the rest of the world. My employees have heard it, my kids, my supervisors, my husbands. And when I was alone, I would find myself screaming it out loud. Impulsive and destructive. Multiple times an hour, multiple times a day. After a time it was barely controllable and barely contained.
It became so destructive that I was actively contemplating suicide, for the fifth time in my life. July, August and September were a white-knuckle ride. Each day presented new challenges that I was increasingly losing the ability to address or control. These challenges weren’t just about work – they included retriggering events and encounters, strong shifts in my family including sick parents and grandparents and the normal Trump-associated threats to the world. The hits just kept coming and I felt I was letting everyone down no matter how I responded.
And while I won’t go into detail about the reasons or rationale, what is important is that I reached out to the people best situated to offer meaningful help, without imposed expectations or unsolicited advice. I called on my team, both mortal and ethereal, to assist me through this storm. I have worked too hard, overcome too much, and had too much ahead of me to go down without a fight.
And that voice urging me to fight was my Pueblo voice: The Priestess of Pride City.
Go Big Blue
There is something distinctive about being from Pueblo. We are home to more Congressional Medal of Honor winners than anywhere else in the US. Formerly part of Mexico, we’ve celebrated Cinco de Mayo with our sister city, Puebla, the site of that historic victory. We host the Colorado State Fair and welcome all of Colorado’s makers, farmers, ranchers, and revelers culminating with the crowning a Fiesta Day queen. We have the longest running high school football rivalry west of the Mississippi (Videos: Bell Game 2019 – Bell Rings Blue ). And recently, our Governor has stood up with pride to defend the honor of our mirasol green chiles, defining the taste of Pueblo.
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